ISLAMABAD: Playing politics is always a cruel game but it becomes brutal and spiteful when rivals are not spared even when they faced with severe health problems.
A predominant majority of senior politicians has avoided any wild speculations as Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced to leave for London on Wednesday for medical check-up. But there are exceptions.
Conspicuous among them is top Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader Aitzaz Ahsan, who says the premier is not visiting London for his heart condition but to ‘only appear in Asif Ali Zardari’s court’, who also happens to be in Britain for some time.
Nobody believed his claim. Only Aitzaz Ahsan knows what positive impact or political benefit his assertion produced for him or the PPP. However, it did quickly prompt the official spokesman to strongly rebut the contention.
He did not stop here but also said “the PPP will be damaged, if this time we sided with the federal government; I will certainly convey my opinion to the party chairman and co-chairman; if the prime minister contracted the disease for speaking truth in his address to the nation, he should not speak so much truth,” Aitzaz Ahsan, always a doubter of the government’s moves and even of Nawaz Sharif’s illness, said in his usual tone.
On the other hand, hardly anybody has a second opinion that the prime minister faces serious health issues specifically cardiac problem that have forced him to abruptly rush to London at this point of time when the political noise over the Panama Papers leaks is on.
In 2011, Nawaz Sharif had narrowly survived when a minor heart procedure had been botched up. After that, he was advised by the cardiologists to regularly consult them on the heart disease.
He has stated more than once that the office of the prime minister of Pakistan is not a bed of roses, but is a bed of thorns, meaning it entails a lot of tremendous stress and strain. Obviously, the mention of two offshore companies owned by his children and the ensuing political commotion impacted his health, which already needed to be fixed as his medical check-up was long overdue but he was delaying it for his preoccupation in Pakistan.
Officials, privy to his programme, say his stay in London will depend on his treatment and the advice of the doctors. As per the present schedule, he is likely to fly back home next week.
Asif Zardari had faced more anguish and torture from his political opponents when he, as president of Pakistan, had suddenly flown to Dubai on account of his cardiac problem in 2011 amid deep controversy over the “memogate’ when his relationship with the establishment was also at its lowest ebb and speculations were rife about his political fate.
He had then suffered a minor heart attack, which forced his departure abroad for treatment. However, all the rumours had automatically died natural death after he flew back after some days.
At the time, the PPP leaders had vehemently stated that he had gone abroad for medical check-up and would return as he would be through with it. This had precisely happened.
Among the PPP leaders, Aitzaz Ahsan is taking a hard-line, not shared by his colleagues, on the Panama Papers leaks. For example, former Interior Minister Rehman Malik, a close confidante of Zardari, has said, pronouncing the policy of his boss, that the PPP has given up the demand for resignation of the prime minister. Except Aitzaz Ahsan, all the PPP stalwarts are not too harsh on the question of the Panama Papers leaks as far as these are concerned with the prime minister’s children.
Not only this, the senior PPP leaders have distanced themselves from the extreme policy of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and are in no mood to cooperate with it. They are averse to the PTI’s planned sit-in in front of the Raiwind farmhouse of the prime minister.
It is not clear but it appears that the issue of naming retired or sitting judges of the superior courts for the judicial commission, announced by the prime minister, will remain in a limbo till his homecoming from London.
The present controversy revolves around inclusion of former and sitting justices. The main opposition parties insist that the forum should be headed by the Supreme Court chief justice and should comprise its judges.
The prime minister had said that it would consist of former justices. However, under the Pakistan Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1956, it is the prerogative of the federal government to appoint retired or sitting judges or anybody else, not below the rank of grade 17.
There is no end to the flight of fancy as Nawaz Sharif proceeds to London. Those nursing and promoting such imagination have gone to the extent of speculating a meeting between the premier and Zardari.
They ascribe special importance to the simultaneous presence of Nawaz Sharif, Zardari, Imran Khan and Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan in London. Claiming that they will meet was nothing but height of bizarre rumour-mongering.